Posts Tagged ‘Chinese mine explosian’

There has been a lot of talk about miracles in the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners. Granted it was an incredible story and an amazing feat to get the whole crew out safe and sound. But a miracle? I don’t think so. Unless you want to talk about the miracle of technology.

We’ll never know, but I wonder if those 33 miners would be alive today without the worldwide media attention their plight generated.

Without the wall-to-wall media coverage would the outside technology have become available to make the rescue possible? Would the mining company have spent the time and the money necessary to effect the rescue? Would the Chilean president have been front and center at the rescue operation for the duration?

I don’t know about the first two, but I would bet the last one wouldn’t have happened.

Of course everyone wants to take credit for the rescue.

It is the race within the race: while rescuers inch towards the trapped miners rival churches tussle over the miracle in the making. Evangelical, Adventist and Catholic clerics are vying to stamp their own particular faith on a surge in religious fervour as the drama nears a climax in Chile‘s Atacama desert.

The three Christian denominations have each claimed credit for what they say is divine intervention in the survival – and expected imminent rescue – of the 33 men who have spent 67 days beneath the earth.

There was also a report that when the information became available that the miners were had been located and were still alive that there was an attempt to withhold the information from family members until Chilean President Pinera could arrive and deliver the message personally. Proving once again that the political need for a photo op overrides all other sensibilities.

To put things in perspective, while the world became emotionally attached to the drama of the Chilean rescue, 4 miners died in a mine collapse in Ecuador and 26 miners were killed and 11 trapped in a mine explosion in China.